Arriva Rail London (ARL), which operates the London Overground on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), is trialling an innovative solution to help British Sign Language (BSL) users access essential information whilst travelling on the London Overground network.
GoMedia has developed Luna, a smart application powered by Signapse technology and integrated with GoMedia’s accessible wayfinding solution, ‘Visor’, which translates digital information listed online into BSL and transmits it directly to the user through their smart device via a personalised digital signer.
The development and testing of the solution has been funded by the Department for Transport (DfT), through the £5.3m First of a Kind 2023 (FOAK23) competition, which it delivered jointly with Innovate UK (part of UKRI) and High Speed Two (HS2) Limited.
There are more than 150,000 people in the UK who rely on BSL, meaning that many passengers who are deaf or have hearing loss struggle to access essential information whilst travelling. This can be particularly difficult during service disruptions, as information is often shared through audio announcements and is not always available on visual displays or signs.
Project Luna uses a unique webpage, accessed by URL or QR code, which enables customers to access station and facility information, live departures and disruptions, and station announcements in up to 33 different languages.
In addition to BSL, passengers will be also able to access the information Luna provides through audio and text announcements, extending the solution’s usefulness to more than just BSL users, for example people who wear noise cancelling headphones when travelling.
“We are committed to finding solutions which will help London Overground passengers travel independently and with ease, so it made perfect sense to trial GoMedia’s Luna solution. We hope our collaboration with GoMedia will be another step towards more accessible public transport for all.”
The solution is being trialled across five London Overground stations from May until September 2024.
This article was originally published by Icomera.
